


Stormswept

by PlotQueen



Category: Disney RPF
Genre: Desert Island Fic, F/M, Mild Language, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-05
Updated: 2009-11-05
Packaged: 2017-11-01 03:27:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/351469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlotQueen/pseuds/PlotQueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's pretty sure that things like this only happen when scripted. He never really considered that life is stranger than fiction, or that all fiction has its basis in reality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stormswept

When he gets the call about a third Waverly Place movie David simply finds time for it. He doesn't stop to think about the fact that he's moved on to the big screen or that Selena and her band are wrapping up their third tour (and their first international), he doesn't consider the fact that Jake has probably had to finagle time from his own television series (not Disney), or that the other David and Maria have both got careers of their own that have to be juggled for this. Because hey, it's Disney, and if Zac Efron can come back to Disney for the third HSM movie then who the hell does David Henrie think _he_ is to say no to a third Waverly movie?

Except that he doesn't really want to, he's moved on, and he doesn't know if he's going to survive seeing Selena again. But he goes without a fight, because he doesn't really need to tell the world that he can tweet about Selena, to Selena, and from Selena to his heart's content, but seeing her face to face undoes him completely.

This time it's back to the islands; the Bahamas instead of Puerto Rico, which is a nice change from the snow and ice of the last movie (though learning to ski and snowboard was fun). This ought to be the last time, too, he tells himself. The final showdown, the wizard battles that will decide the heir to the Russo magic. David tells himself that it's a relief, that after this he'll never have to look back again. (He forgets quite purposely that he dreams often of Selena, and that he's not really trying to forget Disney or Waverly—just her.)

But once they get on location they slip back into that easy bantering older brother/younger sister routine that has become self-defense over the years.

David lets it happen because it makes Selena smile like she always does even though he absolutely hates it, but what can he do? Tell her? _Selena, I'm not really your brother, and I want you to stop treating me like one. In fact, I want you to treat me like your average, horny twenty-two year old male._ Yeah, cause that'll go over so well.

So David sits back, and David waits, and David hopes and fucking prays that she'll either see him as a man (which totally isn't going to fucking happen _nomatterhowmuchhewantsitto_ ) or he'll just be (not) grateful that this is the last thing he'll have to do for Disney since once it's over and done there's no more plots left for the show. He can stick to Hollywood and spend the next few years (forever) pining for Selena while he tries to make blockbuster romantic comedies.

Cause yeah, that's a great plan.

xXx

Selena has looked forward to this for years. Even if no one else really thought about it, she knew that a third movie would be optioned when the show ended before the wizard battle. She's looked forward to seeing David again for a while, but never quite had the guts to simply visit him when she never has before. She almost regrets the whole Waverly Place thing, except if she hadn't done it, or he hadn't done it, she would never have met David in the first place.

She's in the middle of tour, somewhere in southeast London trying to shop when her agent calls and tells her the news. “Disney's _finally_ (because waiting this long to do it is practically an insult) optioned the third movie—you start shooting after your tour.”

Selena knows better than to argue because it's Disney, and it was her best start, and she'd really like closure from that part of her life before she goes back to making music and touring. And it's not like she can say no anyway, because it's Disney and she's only Selena Gomez, not J.Lo or part of Brangelina. So she smiles the smile that she learned from Disney, the one that hides everything she's really feeling, and says great, she can't wait, and immediately tweets that she hopes the battle is epic.

(And of course anyone that follows her will know what that means even if Disney hasn’t announced it yet, but Selena really doesn't care at this point because her stomach is so tied in knots at the thought of seeing David again. She really wishes that it's just excitement, but she's not stupid and she knows that it's actually a lot more than that.)

When they call back into the old routine she smiles again that Disney smile and bumps David's shoulder with her own and plays a lighthearted prank on him with Jake. Then she hides in her hotel room and spends fifteen minutes crying because Selena really doesn't want to be his little sister, since she's not, but she's not stupid and she knows that flinging herself at him would be a mistake.

Because she's not stupid and she knows. She wishes she didn't.

But she does, so Selena learns to content herself to what she can have, which isn't all that bad when you consider how David spent his free time when they filmed in Puerto Rico. Half naked in swim trunks is definitely a look for him, and she takes a great deal of pleasure in watching him behind her biggest, darkest pair of sunglasses when they're out at the same time. She's pretty sure she's safe, because no one has come to bust her on it, and she's pretty sure Jennifer would.

But she still doesn't think it's all that fair, because they're filming in the Bahamas, it's like a paid vacation on Nassau, and she should be enjoying herself, not pining away for a man that hasn't looked at her like she's a woman since she met him. And she's almost twenty now so really, if anything were going to happen, Selena just knows it would have already happened. (And it's not even like she hasn't tried dating, and twice careful, random hookups just to try and get David out of her system—like he was ever really there.)

So she calls Demi (who knows _everything_ ) and Demi rearranges her schedule to let Selena cry on her shoulder through the phone and then tells Selena that just because David's not ogling doesn't mean he's not looking. “And besides,” Demi says with Selena hanging on every word, “you haven't seen him in two years, so dig out your bikini and make the boy sweat. God, Sel, you're gorgeous. Shove it in his face. Not even David can avoid it if you do that.”

So Selena digs out a tasteful bikini (because technically this is still Disney and barely there isn't going to cut it) and takes advantage of the shoot and spends most of her free time lounging by the pool or on the beach or leaning against the bar charming fruity drinks out of the bartender. If anyone has figured out that where Selena is lounging David isn't far away was a _plan_ , no one’s said anything about it. Yet.

But the rest of Selena's free time she spends locked in her hotel room trying not to cry herself sick. (Because Demi was wrong, David _can_ avoid it.)

xXx

He's not sure whether he wants to strangle her or drag her to his room (or hers—whichever’s closer) and ravish her with all of the bottled up need he's been suborning for the last few years. She has to know what she's doing to him—walking around in that excuse for swimwear—it's amazing that there's any blood left in his head (at least the one with the brain) so that he can think this thoughts of kidnapping and debauching her.

But there's one thing that David knows: Selena is Selena and she wears what she likes. Far be it from him to deny her the chance to flaunt herself (even if the remainder of his thoughts are death on all of the other horny twenty-something’s staring at her—she's nineteen for fuck's sake, don't look at her like she’s a piece of meat) and the chance for David to don his sunglasses (to ostensibly work on his tan) and ogle her along with everything else with a dick on the island.

But things are going. Well enough for the filming, not so well for David and his inner thoughts, but still well. They're three weeks into it, there's two left and then no one knows how much work after the fact before it airs, and David gets asked, “Can you drive a jet ski?”

It's a bad day for him, Selena was smiling and making eyes behind her own shades at some stupid cabana boy for a drink and David is really feeling the need to be hostile. (Jealousy does that, you know?)

“It's like a gun, you point and shoot, right?” The look on the director's face isn't priceless, it's just alarmed, and David pastes on a smile and says, “I did it once or twice while we filmed the last movie. Like riding a bike, yeah?”

And it's smoothed, the alarm gone and no one can even think that David was serious when he said it. It's shrugged off as another DavidandSelena prank (which makes total sense because it's not like she was lounging by the pool still chatting at the prick who brought her a drink) and David tries not to think of all the reasons why his honest (jealous) sarcasm was there in the first place.

But when they hand him the jet ski he does take the chance to go do some really stupid shit on the water for a bit. Then they frown at him and tell him not to do that stupid shit; he needs to be in one piece for at least the next few weeks. Selena just watches him behind her sunglasses while he waits for them to fill the tank up, her lip caught between her teeth.

Today they're filming on the southeast point of Nassau, and half the day is spent prepping, the other half is spent on the beach filming, and the night is handed over to bunking in the little bungalow Disney rented nearby, and they're up at dawn the next morning for more filming. David's not real happy about it, he's tired and tired of thinking and he's still twisting from the fact that he spent the night in a room that had a single wall between him and Selena.

But David knows Selena doesn't like to be up early either, so he pastes a smile on and does his job and when they turn him loose for a bit until the afternoon he slides onto his jet ski and sits out on the water watching the shoot, and not Selena. Which is hard, since she's floating not far away doing the same thing, but she's been here for a while already since she doesn't have to shoot till the afternoon. And, really, it's not like David's masterminded the schedule, or the current, or any of it, so they're both out here near the boat, mainly alone, and suddenly together.

Which is why it happens.

It's not Selena's fault, and they both know it, it’s an accident. (David doesn't know how little sleep she's had, and she doesn't know how eager he is to spend time with _justher_ and no one else.) So when she lays back on her rented jet ski and starts to doze lightly, catching some sun and waiting until it's her turn to shoot (still hours away) David takes the chance to pull alongside her on purpose and reach out to hold their jet skis together. And even though she's tired, and even though they both are old enough know better, they don't pay any attention at all as they talk, faces up to the sun, just waiting.

It's not until the sun has passed its zenith and started its downhill westward journey that David sits up (because Selena drifted off completely a bit ago and he's loathe to wake her when she looks so comfortable) and realizes that—

There's no boat.

There's no crew.

In fact, there's no island a few hundred yards away.

And the sky behind them is darkening ominously.

xXx

When Selena wakes up it's to David's hand frantically shaking her shoulder, clouds rolling across the sky like a black wave, and the first splashes of what she instinctively knows is going to be a torrent. She's upright and looking about them for the boat or the island before David's words come even close to registering, and then the panic is welling up impossibly fast because there _is_ no boat and there _is_ no island, just water and sky and a dark smudge behind her.

“We drifted, Sel,” he's telling her, and as much as she adores David her sudden pithy mental commentary is cruel and unusual. But then, this whole situation is ludicrous—so maybe it's all right if she hates him for being obvious right then (and, really, how did no one notice them just quietly drifting off into the middle of the ocean?) even if she doesn't really hate him at all.

“Why didn't you wake me up sooner?” she demands, jumping right to it instead of waiting for him to finish. But she's scared and she's frantic because it's really starting to rain now and she has to almost yell to be heard. And Selena doesn't really know that David's let her keep dozing as he watches the current and tries to figure out which way is land.

Of course, she doesn't realize that David doesn't realize that the incoming storm has changed the current between the time he realized they were lost at sea and the time he started trying to figure it out. So when David tells her that he doesn't think they went all that far she believes him and is grateful.

He's taken aback by her harsh question and the trace of accusation in her voice, it's all over his face, but Selena sees him swallow that down to answer her, to deal with the situation, and probably never to bring it up again. “I think I dozed off, too,” he admits loudly, but she can still barely hear him. Then he points and yells louder, “I think that's where we need to go, I think that's Nassau.”

So, quiet and obedient (which is really nothing like her at all) she makes her jet ski roar to life and takes off behind David to that darkened smudge that must be land, thinking that everything is going to be alright, they just had a few minutes of a scare and they're going to be fine. But Selena also doesn't know what a good riptide is capable of and when land is not as big as it's supposed to be, her heart starts pounding harder, more uncontrolled than before, and she realizes that she's passed from fear to terror—because this isn't Nassau.

Of course then everything gets worse, because in the middle of the wind and rain and thunder and lightening David's jet ski suddenly takes a nosedive into the water ten yards ahead of her, and Selena is left watching it land upside down and _stay_ and David hit the water _hard_.

The panic before is worse now because sure, the jet ski is (amazingly) floating in one place, but David's not, and he's not really moving either. Selena screams.

Her heart is in her throat and she's pretty sure that it's not beating as she twists her hand on the throttle, urging the engine to move her forward towards him, but slowly—not the headlong rush she wants to because it was headlong rush that sent David tumbling and now sinking. She sees the barely submerged reef that David's jet ski is clinging to like a lover and steers around it, now cautious as she heads for him.

He's still sinking, already under, and Selena can barely make out the pale of his shirt to grab him by when she makes it to where he is. He's unconscious (which she knew) and bleeding (which makes her stomach turn) but adrenaline helps her muscle him up far enough that only his legs are dragging water as she inches through the storm to whatever island they've found.

The waves are vicious; once she's past the reef and can see nothing but pale sand in the relatively shallow water, Selena guns the engine and sends the watercraft shooting straight at the beach. Momentum drives it hard up the sand and to a hard, jerking stop that sends her breath out of her. But they're out of the water, at least the water beneath them, and she's never been so grateful for dry (figuratively speaking) land.

It looks vaguely drier in the undergrowth that abuts the beach, so Selena sets to work dragging David there. And it is. Sort of. So she burrows them in under one of the larger bushes, grateful for several large, overlapping leaves that keep the worst of the downpour away from her, and begins to look David over. He's got a pulse, and he's breathing (thank god, because she's terrified that she'd fall apart if he wasn't), and when she looks at his head she can see the gash just past his hairline that's the cause of the steady flow of red down the side of his face.

But he's breathing, after all, so she rushes back out into the rain to salvage what she can from under the seat of her beached jet ski, because his is wrecked and hers isn't and she likes her creature comforts enough to carry things around with her wherever she goes. A spare t-shirt that she pulls on in a desperate attempt to shield her skin from the cold, stinging rain. A bottle of sunblock, three bottles of water, a bag of chips, two sandwiches, a book, and (thank god) a first aid kit.

She spreads them all out when she gets back to David (who's still breathing), shoves the useless sunblock and book as close to the trunk of the plant as she can, and the food and water near it. Then she opens the first aid kit.

There's nothing in it, and the first strangled sob comes wrenching from her mouth as she realizes that she doesn't really have anything important after all. But the noise itself it's strangely loud amid the storm, and David shifts next to her.

“S'lena?” he groans.

Her hand flies to her mouth and she whispers (desperately), “David?” Then she gasps as his eyes roll back in his head. And really, it's the rain on her face, not tears, because David's going to be _okay_ and god, that looks like so much blood.

She doesn't know what to do: she doesn't watch all that much TV and, really, how much of that is going to work here? She doesn't have any of that here. Fuck, she doesn't even have a band-aid. But there's not much choice in what she can do; David is bleeding and it needs to be stopped, so she tugs off the shirt she's pulled on and presses it to where the blood seeps, and she prays.

xXx

David wakes with Selena’s head on his chest and possibly the worst headache he’s ever had (except for the hangover headache from his twenty-first birthday) in the history of his life. It certainly doesn’t help that his mouth is parched and he feels crusty with sand and salt—which brings back the reality of their situation. He bites back the groan he wants to make and carefully shifts from under Selena’s head. She’s tired; she must be because she drooled on him.

So David decides to reconnoiter on his own for a few minutes. It turns into more than a few when he finds her jet ski a little more than halfway up the beach and, ignoring the way his head throbs and aches (he hasn’t touched it yet because he doesn’t realize that it’s an actual wound and not just an ache), David pushes and pulls and shoves until he’s manhandled it back to the now calm water.

He’s not sure how far they’ve drifted or where exactly they are, but he does know that the engine of Selena’s jet ski was off the majority of the time and he hopes there’s enough gas left to try and have a look around. There is, just enough that when David sets out on a short trip (that manages to circle what is indeed a small island) he still has enough left over to take a quick jaunt out to where he sees his own jet ski.

He goes carefully and when he sees the way the fiberglass has been caved and the jut of coral holding it against the steady pull of the ocean. It takes David a moment, but he cuts the engine and drifts at the last moment, a hand going to his head and carefully threading through his dark hair to feel the now scabbed laceration that (he thinks) he got from the protruding reef. He feels ill again, and a cold shiver slips down his spine.

Then David pushes it aside because hey, he’s alive isn’t he? And he came out for a reason. Under the seat are a first aid kit, a flashlight, his sunglasses, a towel, and two bottles of Corona (because David’s plenty old enough to drink) that David stashed there. Just in case, because he’s twenty-two and there’s some truth to the whole twenty-something males and beer. One of the bottles is broken and the warm smell of hops and yeast tells David that the towel is going to need to be washed somehow before use, and that everything is going to be alcohol sticky.

But the other one is fine, and David fully intends on drinking it.

(Unless Selena wants some, because they’re lost on an island in the middle of the Bahamas and who’s going to arrest him for sharing a beer with his pretty nineteen-year-old costar. Whom he happens to be more than a little crazy about. Because David’s a fairly trustworthy guy and he wouldn’t take advantage of her. Even if he wants to.)

On his way back he goes slowly; paranoia has made him look down and he realizes that, like most of the Caribbean, this island is ringed by coral and reef and it really is just a damned miracle that he didn’t kill himself when he circumvented it. He veers to the right of where he left the beach, gunning the engine (just as Selena did, though he doesn’t know it) so that he rocks to a stop above the water line.

He expects to find Selena still asleep, or at the very least fiddling with something, looking, searching for a way home. Instead he finds her huddled on the beach near where the jet ski was when he took it, face buried against her arms, knees to her chest, crying. And when he says her name she looks up at him, relief, joy, a hint of anger, and launches herself into his arms.

“I was so scared, I didn’t know where you’d gone,” she tells him, her face pressed into his neck, tears hotter on his skin than the air. “I was so afraid you left me.”

He doesn’t think about it and is pretty sure that Selena doesn’t notice it as he presses a kiss to her hair and another to the side of her neck as he pulls her tighter against him. “I would never leave you, Sel.”

It’s only later (after she’s heaped some abuse on him for frightening her to death and used the band-aids from the second first aid kit to try and fix his head) once they have a slightly (not much) better grip on the situation that David realizes that he means it. He'll never leave her. Even if he thought he could, there's a very good chance he'd just wither away and die without her.

And he's beginning to think she might feel the same. At least a little.

xXx

They manage to work out some kind of survival as one day turns into two and three (and then Selena decides that she doesn't want to count because she doesn't want to think that she's going to spend however long—the rest of her life—on this tiny island and god, this kind of stuff is supposed to happen in stories, not real life, and how fucked up is it that it happens to her?) and Selena thinks that things might be okay. Or at least livable, in the vaguest terms.

They’ve both watched _Castaway_ , and even if Selena turned away when Tom Hanks used the ice skate to knock his tooth out, she watched the rest of it. And David teases her when she admits she read the entire _Little House_ series when she was a little girl. But then she teases David back because apparently he has a cousin who’s a Cub Scout and he’s been camping before so he should (theoretically) know what he’s doing.

They both conveniently forget (like accidentally on purpose, you know?) that there were tents and sleeping and, well, everything you take camping in modern times.

The first day (the one after David disappeared and she cried herself sick) the both spend hours finding and dragging branches, deadfall, anything they can find, to the beach to spell out the message. _HELP._ If she could find a way to make it bolder against the sand, she would. But she can’t, not really, and contents herself with adding sticks and twigs and leaves to make the letters thicker and taller above the sugar white sand.

They eat the last sandwich for lunch (since it would have spoiled if they don’t and since they’re about to be starving neither she nor David see why they shouldn’t enjoy a last meal) and split the second bottle of water and then Selena teaches David how to braid. They manage to make a (sort of) lean-to just inside the tree line out of leaves that they braid together with thin pieces of vine and tie the lengths to an oddly shaped stick frame.

It looks weird and wobbly when she inspects it, but Selena agrees that beggars can’t be choosers. And it does keep out the sun that makes it through the trees and she believes it can stop the worst of the rain and it’s something, which makes it better than nothing.

The second day they explore and find fresh water (thank god) in the form of a large pool that’s rimmed by trees and rocks and a teeny (the tiniest) waterfall she’s ever seen. They both jump in fully clothed, grateful to be able to wash the sand and sweat and salt off of themselves and their clothes. The third day after their arrival, they realize that boredom might be the most dangerous thing about this.

So they try and concentrate on being productive. Which has some very interesting results.

The first time David brings her a fish (which is one of those results) it’s already scaled and gutted (sort of, because they don’t actually have a knife and David’s making do with a piece of busted acrylic glass from the jet ski) but the remaining things that he didn’t quite get out and the beady little eyes staring at her send Selena stumbling for the tree line to lose what little is in her stomach where he can’t hear her. She expects some teasing when she gets back, or maybe even a superior male smirk, but all she gets are his worried eyes and a slow, gentle smile that she returns weakly.

“I wasn’t much better when I was cleaning it,” he tells her, and Selena smiles a little more at his pseudo-admission that gutting the fish made him sick. She sobers when he says, “It’ll get easier.”

She doesn’t want it to get easier. She wants to be found, to go home. She doesn’t want to be trapped here forever. But at least she’s stuck here with David. Out of everyone she knows it’s only Demi and David that Selena enjoys spending so much time around, but Selena is also more honest about it. She loves Demi, to pieces even, she’s Selena’s best friend. But David is David, and that’s just fact.

By the end of the first week, though, the plans they have are in motion and they’re pretty sure they’ll be okay for a little while. David’s head is healing; the scab is flaking off when he tries to wash himself and on inspection Selena finds healthy pink skin peeking through it and his hair. She smiles and takes a great deal of pleasure in David’s own enthusiasm as he shows her his fish pit. (He must have spent hours digging it up the beach and the trench leading to it, but she can’t deny it’s worked when he shows her five scaly things trapped there next to the guts from another fish.)

Things are alright, things are okay. They have fire (Selena never thought she would be grateful to beer, but the glass bottle is an invaluable fire starter) and they have fresh water and there’s fish and fruit that isn’t killing them. They have shelter, and they have the message. They’re going to be alright.

xXx

“Do you think they’re looking for us right now?” David asks her one night as they sit on the beach staring at the ocean in the dark. They’ve been here for eight days and he’s starting to think that eight days is just the beginning of a lot longer.

She shrugs and leans over to bump her shoulder against his. “Even if they’re not looking right this moment,” she says, “They’re still looking for us. After all, it’d make Disney look bad to lose two of the stars of their latest movie.”

He doesn’t say anything for a long while, because David heard the fear lacing her casual words. He thinks that he should be the one reassuring her; he hates that she’s the one reassuring him. But he can’t help it, so he tries to simply not think about it. It’s easy to think of something else, since she’s sitting right next to him, and for the last five mornings when he’s woken up she’s been pressed up against him still asleep.

He shies away from those thoughts, safer not to think about them. After all, he’s still just twenty-two and that does give him some rather predictable reactions to thinking about her like that. So he thinks about other things, like how she looks thinner, and how she’s sleeping more. And he worries, because he doesn’t think that a diet of fruit and fish is the greatest. That, and he’s getting tired of the same citrus tang, the same flaking fishy.

So he decides to indulge in a little torture session since they do have enough to eat and they are (at least he is) pleasantly full at the moment from their last efforts at cooking.

“When we get home I’m going to have a steak.” He’s pretty sure that he’s putting Pavlov’s dogs to shame with the way the mere thought of red meat has him salivating. 

Selena giggles a little next to him. “What is it with guys and steak?” She hmm’s and sighs and says, “I want chicken. Steak’s good and all, but I think something Italian would the best right now.”

They continue on in that vein for some time and David tries not to notice how every time one of them turns to look at the other, they somehow manage to shift closer to each other. It’s not freezing—it’s the Caribbean, how could it be? But the night air does carry a hint of chill that always makes him grateful that they share the towel at night, and with her sitting so close, a length of warmth on his left side, David can’t help but want to be even closer.

“I wish we had some chocolate,” she says after they talk for a while about chicken and steak and cheese and salads and all of the food they wish they had. “I really miss chocolate right now.”

He misses ice cream, and is about to say so when she adds, “And I miss soap, too. And hot water. And I miss Demi and I miss my mom—”

She stops and David doesn’t need the flashlight or fire to see the way her shoulders are shaking or to know that she’s crying. Truth is, half the time when he thinks of the things (people) he misses, he feels like crying himself. But this is Selena crying next to him, so he shoves the tears that might be welling up back inside and he wraps an arm around her.

She turns into him, her arms slim as they wrap around him, her face pressed to his chest and her tears wetting his shirt. He thinks about telling her that he’s all over with sand and that she doesn’t want it on her, too, but he doesn’t because he knows he’s just being stupid. She’s all over sand already, and she needs someone right now to hold her.

He wants to tell her it’s okay, but he can’t, because he’s not really sure that it is.

xXx

Selena has never really cared for morning breath or an icky tasting mouth, so she’s always brushed her teeth religiously. She’s even been known to carry a travel brush and toothpaste with her. (She has a lot of travel-sized things because she likes to take care of herself.) But her purse wasn’t in the jet ski so there’s no travel sized toothbrush, toothpaste, hairbrush, lotion—any of the stuff she has. So while she’s stuck with keeping her hair pulled back in an imperfect braid, she wracks her brain trying to come up with a way to kill the morning breath.

She hits on it after a couple of hours of mindless leaf braiding (she wants to expand their shelter a but, and maybe layer the leaves several times, because it rained last night and the lean-to isn’t as waterproof as she’d hoped) Selena finds that solution.

She gets a fresh stick broken from one of the fruit bearing trees, peels back the thin layer of bark until the pale inner flesh is revealed, and scrubs at her teeth with it. It’s not perfect and doesn’t taste at all refreshing, and Selena still has to duck her mouth into the freshwater pool to scrub the buildup of ick from her tongue with the stick, but it works.

So she shows Justin and, even though he joins her in the mouth cleaning frenzy, he laughs and teases her and asks how she thought it up.

“I saw it in _Shakespeare in Love_ ,” Selena says defensively. “Besides, it’s better than having days old morning breath.”

And when he does it he asks her why she didn’t think of it before. Selena just shrugs and doesn’t answer because she doesn’t want to tell him that she’s not feeling so hot. But at least her mouth is a little fresher. She spends the rest of the day focusing on that and the little things she’s trying to do, and adding more leaves and sticks to the HELP sign. She doesn’t think about the headache that’s been building behind her eyes or how marched she feels, the fact that she’s filled and emptied her water bottle at least a dozen times.

And Selena definitely doesn’t think about the fact that she didn’t eat dinner because she isn’t sure it will stay in her stomach.

When she wakes up on the tenth morning with a fever it’s all Selena can do not to cry. (Actually, she thinks as her mind is fuzzed with illness, she probably _would_ cry except she’s so dehydrated she can’t make tears.) She whimpers and David stirs next to her, and it’s frightening how quickly he realizes that she’s sick.

“Aw, fuck, Sel,” he murmurs. His hand is like ice on her forehead and Selena is wracked with agony as the sudden pitiful giggle at David’s cursing makes her head thud with headache. “You’ve got a fever.”

“I noticed,” she rasps. She turns her face into his hand seeking the pitiful relief his touch gives her. the day is a lost cause for both of them after that as David tries to make sure she at least drinks enough water to keep her from getting sicker, nursing her as it makes her sick to her stomach, and making sure that she has a constant supply of water to wet his shirt that he’s laid across her forehead.

Selena thinks that it’s sweet and wonderful when she can spare the effort to think of anything but how awful she feels. The fact that he even holds her hair when she throws up, instead of just making disgusted faces and trying to avoid her like most boys would, comforts her nearly as much as the cool shirt on her head.

She doesn’t sleep much that night, and neither does he, and the second day is worse than the first. She just hopes that it’s over soon, because she’s not sure how much of this she can take. And very quietly in the back of her mind, so quietly that Selena isn’t really aware that it’s a conscious thought, she hopes that she starts getting better soon, because she knows that she might not without medicine. And the thought of dying here, in the middle of nowhere, with just David, is fucking awful. Especially since she would be leaving him here alone.

xXx

The third day of Selena’s fever David wakes up before the sun while dawn is nothing more than a silver gray mist through the island that has become their world. When he touches her she's burning alive inside her own skin and David's heart stutters. He's just twenty-two, he's not supposed to be responsible for the life of the girl next to him. (Not that he doesn't want to be, by now David is willing to admit that he's more than a little in love with her, and damn the consequences.)

But she's burning up, and this isn't exactly a haven of modern technology, and the first aid kit doesn’t exactly have limitless supplies. (They were just lucky it had band-aids and tape, even if it doesn’t have Tylenol or Advil or something else that could help her.)

He does the next best thing and scoops her up, ignoring her faint moan of protest. Her head lolls back and her arms drag and other than the shallow breathing that's scared him half the night Selena doesn't do anything, say anything. Her eyes are sunken and her hair is lank, emphasizing how ill she must actually be.

It scares him. Badly.

But David pushes that fear back and carries her down the little trail they've worn over the last week and five days and when they get to the pool he heads right in. Who cares if they get soaked? Because at this point, that water will be like ice on her fever and that's just what she needs. His shirt is back at the lean-to (having been left behind when it failed it’s duty of keeping her fever down) so David hesitates for all of two seconds before he strips hers off of her, looking away as he does so when he realizes that she never put her bikini top back on after she washed it before she got sick.

After he's sunk her back under the water and there's nothing but the vague shape of her naked torso he wraps the wet shirt around her head. Selena's shivering now, her teeth almost chattering, but she's still so hot that he thinks the water should be boiling around her, or at least steam rising where it touches her skin, and he's really scared.

When the sun's finally risen high enough to make the world bright and she's not shivering and even the still cool water is beginning to feel balmy she stirs in his arms where he's been holding her, trying not to doze and failing spectacularly.

“David?” she murmurs, her voice a little raspy from disuse, and when he looks down her eyes are open and—though still sunken—clear. The pink on her cheeks isn't as bright and the fever's broken (he thinks, because he's never had to do this but really, someone's got to help him out because he's lost in more ways than one right now.)

He smiles, trying to project assurance. He's pretty sure all he manages to do is look pitiful. “Hey, Sel. You feeling better?”

“I'm naked,” is all she says to him, and her eyes are so wide, so dark, like deep pools of dark chocolate against the sick-pale of her skin. He flushes, because the fear that has dominated him for days has fled his body with her apparent lucidity, and he's quite aware that she's _half_ naked and fuck, he's still just twenty-two; how could any sane person blame him for his reaction?

It certainly doesn't hurt that he's completely in love with her. Or maybe he means help. David doesn't know and, more importantly, doesn't really care.

“Only a little,” he temporizes. “But unless I was completely naked, it had to be your shirt. Sorry.”

She makes a small noise of assent, her eyes closing. He thinks she's asleep again and is pondering whether or not to take her back to the lean-to when she speaks, startling him out of at least ten minutes of his life. “I should be embarrassed.”

“Nah,” he tells her softly. “Not really. Desperate times, desperate measures.”

He knows he sounds a little desperate as he says it.

She makes another noise. “Okay.” She sounds half asleep; he decides to keep her there until she asks to be moved since it seems to help and really, it’s not like he has anything better to do than to take care of her. “Because I'm not.”

It's quiet a little longer as his mind wraps around that, his arms full of half naked Selena, and her body temperature beginning to fall to equal his own now. “Sel?” he asks, wondering if she's awake. She is, a bit, her head tilting up to look at him, peering up through her lashes sleepily as she tries to avoid actually being fully aware. “I didn't look.”

 _Much._ But remember, he's twenty-two (and yeah, the horny side of that), which is something he's trying to forget still.

She smiles, her eyes close again, and she’s apparently content to lay there in his arms. “Such a gentleman,” she murmurs into the quiet. “That's what I love about you.”

His heart does back flips and somersaults for hours until she wakes up and wants to be dry.

xXx

They’ve officially passed two weeks lost and Selena is actually feeling pretty damn good now. The morning she woke up to a rapidly dropping fever (half naked) in the water with David seems to have been the turning point for her illness. She improved just as quickly as she fell ill and feels at least a hundred percent better. Maybe more, since something is different with David, and it doesn’t just seem to be that he saw her breasts.

Sure, he could be shadowing her just because she got sick and he’s worried she might get sick again. But if that were the case he wouldn’t be holding her as they go to sleep at night. And he wouldn’t be looking for excuses to touch her. And he wouldn’t have nearly held her hand the night before as they watched the leaf wrapped fish cook at the base of their little fire.

It’s a pleasing change, though, because Selena has been looking for excuses for a long time. Just before, she used Disney and Waverly Place as a shield from it, because it’s kind of daunting to want someone so badly when you’re only sixteen.

She’s not sixteen anymore, and she’s not afraid of how much she wants him.

In fact, she’s beginning to not be afraid that he doesn’t want her.

So as the sun starts heading towards the middle of the sky (she estimates it’s ten, but neither of them ever know the time anymore because they weren’t wearing their watches during shooting) she looks for David and, when she finds him busily putting new fronds of leafing things in the lean-to (the old ones dragged to the side to finish drying for the fire) Selena convinces him that they deserve a day to goof off. Or at least relax a little.

She asks him to swim.

“Why would I want to swim?” he asks her, distracted.

She huffs and yanks the frond out of his hands. “David Henrie, I want to swim and I want you to swim with me.” He’s startled by her vehemence, so Selena backs down a little, then turns pleading eyes on him. “Please? It’s so boring to swim alone.”

And of course he relents (because if there’s one thing Selena has in common with Alex Russo it’s the fact that Selena generally gets what she wants) so she spends the next while in the water with David. They race and play Marco Polo and Selena begins to get used to the sting of salt in her eyes enough to try opening her eyes under water. She wants to look at the fish and the reef and naturally David laughs when it doesn't work so well.

She huffs again, this time from mere inches away as she contemplates splashing him. She also contemplates kissing him; Selena can easily imagine what it would be like to kiss him. It's not like she hasn't thought of it before; his lips will be firm, but still soft (though they're chapped right now from too much sun and salt water) and he'll be good (but not too good, because Selena hates thinking of David kissing anyone but her) and—

She shies away from the thought, unable to contemplate it properly because no matter that she thinks he might want her, she's not sure, and Selena isn't sure she could take rejection.

She splashes him. David protests, and the game begins again until she's too tired to escape properly and David is starting to look a little pink and the sun has definitely started moving down in the sky. When they stumble to shore Selena declares herself parched and, instead of accepting David's suggestion of water, tells him she's sick of water and she'd rather crack the skins of a few of the fruits and enjoy the juice instead.

They find a tree and Selena convinces him that if they pull hard enough they can break a branch off. They do, but every fruit that was on it falls to the ground before they finish. When she and David collect them and haul them back to the beach she doesn't think twice about the fruit being a little softer than she's used to. It's easier to break open and it's tart and sweet and has an acidic tang that hits the back of her tongue and throat harder than normal, but Selena doesn't really mind all that much. The juice is refreshing, even if it's not cold, and they work their way through the pile, peeling rinds, sucking juices, chewing the flesh.

It's not until Selena goes to rinse her hands in the ocean that she realizes the fruit had fermented past its peak and had more than a little naturally made alcohol in it.

xXx

Having Selena pester him into spending half the day swimming and working on a sunburn isn't David's idea of fun (even though everything they did was close enough that it makes no difference) because he already knows that a sunburn in the middle of nowhere is extra painful—there's no conveniently located stores to buy Lidocaine-laced after sun lotion to soothe and numb the mistreated skin. So when Selena proposes they tromp into the forest to find her juice-laden fruit he doesn't argue. He goes along with it because he knows by the time they find it, cull it from the tree, and make it back to the beach, the sun will probably be setting.

And he's right, which is an unfortunate characteristic to share with the character he's played for years, but David has learned it's best to hedge his bets with educated guesses. It's usually easier to just follow Selena's lead when she's in the kind of mood she's in. Arguing with her only makes her more perversely mischievous (and David can't deal with that right now.)

After all, he's already put forth superhuman efforts _not_ to kiss the girl more than once today.

Herculean efforts aside, David doesn’t really want to think about kissing her anyway—even if he does think she wouldn’t mind it so much (at all) there’s still always the possibility that she’d only kiss him back because he’s the only guy here. So he shoves the thoughts aside as best he can and works on the citrus-y fruits Selena’s so fond of—rolling one between his palms to soften it and then digging nails into the rind and peeling a piece back before passing it to Selena and then making one of his own.

It’s tart, very tart, and Selena has already pretty much killed hers while David is still puzzling at the flavor of his own. But it doesn’t stop him from enjoying it (because David isn’t exactly a heavy drinker) and he doesn’t really realize that he’s well on his way to tipsy. It’s about the time that Selena staggers off to the water that David thinks (knows) there’s a problem.

“You all right, Sel?” he calls after her as he works his way to his feet. His tongue feels (more than) a bit numb and his head feels thick and David thinks that Selena probably isn’t all right because he’s pretty sure that he’s not.

He’s sure when she crashes to her butt in the surf, giggling wildly as he nears (and does she have to be so beautiful?—it should be a crime to be so beautiful) and David almost follows her down as she splashes him. When she starts to scoot off into the deeper water he follows her, promising retribution—but somewhere in the back of his mind he follows because she’s as drunk off of fermented fruit as he is (and somewhere completely south of his mind he knows exactly the same)—

And he trips and falls into the water after her.

“David,” she laughs, and David can’t help but smile as he chokes and gags against the salt water, because she’s back with him pulling him up. Her eyes are dark and smiling even in the shadows and David thinks that this is a moment (maybe _the_ moment) and maybe kissing her right now would be the right thing to do.

But Selena is a little ahead of him (like she usually is), because she’s already commandeering the moment by kissing him.

For a moment David's body is completely rigid against hers, even if his face is comfortably bent down to hers. It's wrong, completely, he knows this, but in the end, David decides that he really doesn't give a damn. (What does it matter that he's inebriated, and she is too, because even if Disney made them they were siblings _on TV_ and not in real life.) So with her mouth soft and pliant under his, David kisses her back.

They lose her shirt in the water (maybe lose is too sanguine a word, because he's pretty sure that he almost ripped it off of her) and then his at the edge of the surf (and he knows for a fact that stitches were stretched, if not popped) and the moment he can work his fingers around the tie at the back of her neck David falls to worshiping her body the way he thinks it should be: with hands, mouth, lips, teeth and tongue.

Selena isn't complaining, not a single bit from where David is looking at her. The way she breathes, her breath hitching inside of her throat just as he nips at it, a hand curving around her breast as she winds her arms around his head to draw him down closer—it's a thing of beauty, a fucking miracle, and David swears to himself that he'll never take her for granted, never take _this_ for granted. 

“David, please,” she sighs to him, and the faint hesitation her had his gone. He eases inside of her with a groan, his face burrowing into the skin between her neck and shoulder.

He'll care tomorrow that there's no protection. He'll care tomorrow that they have sand in the strangest places. He'll care tomorrow that they did this, that they had sex, that David and Selena became (even if it's just for a little while) _DavidandSelena_ the way he thinks they should be.

For now, all he can concentrate on is the fact that he has something to care about. (And the raging desire to make it more than just the once, because this is Selena and it can't be just once.)

xXx

Her head is pounding when Selena wakes up and for a moment all she can care about is the fact that her mouth tastes like something died in it. Then Selena realizes that the sun is up, she's naked, and David is wrapped around her just as much as she is around him. If her skin weren't already sun dark from their time here she'd be showing off a full body blush (and really, how silly is that just because they had sex?) except that David is still asleep and wouldn't see it.

She thinks that if she were cooler, more hip, more something, she'd know how to handle this. But it's nothing like the two boys she'd taken before as lovers (god, nothing like that because this is _David_ ) and she's _just_ Selena Gomez and no one ever told her that one day she'd have wild drunken sex with the man she's pretty sure (completely sure) she loves on the deserted island they've been stranded on for weeks.

Selena decides her life sucks (even though according to her blurry memory it really doesn't.)

The first step, she thinks, is to do something about the sand and dead-animal breath, otherwise she might be sick. It's just sad that she can't hold her alcohol like some other people she's known (not that she's ever really tried all that hard) and Selena finds that concentrating on how messed up everything is really does help take the focus off of her head and the way her stomach lurches as she wriggles away from David to leave him alone on the sand just under the shade cast by the trees.

She doesn't think for a moment that he could take her abandonment wrong (after all, she's never exactly been in this place before) so she doesn't do more than search for her shirt (and stumble over his) at the edge of the water. It's a miracle that she finds it, but Selena is long past miracles at this point and only the thought of cleaning up in their pool of cool, fresh water keeps her going.

It helps, a lot. (Not as much as scrubbing at her teeth and tongue with a badly peeled stick, and even the acrid flavor of the left-behind bark is better than the taste of her own mouth.) It helps more to focus on scrubbing sand from her body and her clothes.

It's only when Selena hears him coming through the brush, his steady footfalls crashing loud, that she looks up, suddenly pensive. But she's so quiet that when David emerges he doesn't even realize she's there. She doesn't make any moves to tell him otherwise because (no matter how stupid it seems) she's embarrassed (which is just sad) and—what if he regrets it?

He looks...like hell. And it doesn't have anything to do with the sand he's covered in, the painful looking burn he's sporting across his shoulders, or the the bloodshot eyes. For a moment Selena can't breathe, and the embarrassment fades as she sees the tension in his shoulders, the way David's jaw is clenched hard enough to chip tooth, the line between his eyes that only happens when he's unhappy and thinking too hard.

She stands up. (She also conveniently forgets that she's not wearing much of anything, which isn't really such a bad thing after all.) “David,” she says.

His head whips around and Selena thinks for a moment that she sees revulsion on his face. Oh, that's it, she thinks, he regrets it and now nothing is ever going to be right between the two of them again. As quickly as he sees her he turns his face away. She breathes out, hurt, but she's not really sure what to expect because this is David, not some boy she can convince herself that she cares about so that for just a few nights she doesn't have to sleep alone.

“I'm sorry,” he gets out. She wants to tell him to shove the apology back through his clenched teeth. She doesn't.

“It helps to scrub your tongue,” she tells him instead, still entertaining the sudden (and completely rational) desire to smack him with a stick instead of let him scrub his tongue. And when he moves to leave she can't help make a pitiful noise that's somewhere between a whimper and a sniffle.

David stops suddenly and Selena knows that he heard. Her hand is on it's way to stifle anything else, ready to clamp over her mouth until he's gone so that she can cry (sob, weep, scream, any-fucking-thing that will make the sudden pain inside her come out) when he apologizes again.

He hasn't done anything wrong and she tells him so.

“You were drunk,” he breathes (and neither of them think that it's funny she was drunk on fruit) as he faces her again.

“So were you,” is her angry retort. The sudden fit of temper helps soothe it (which magically makes her innate humor fly through—because who gets even a buzz from fermented fruit, much less a full on drunk?) so she continues. “Besides, it's my fault. I picked that bunch of fruit.”

“I had no right,” he says, and she ignores it because if he had no right than she certainly didn't (because she kissed him after all). He argues, she argues back, and it ends with the sudden realization that they're face to face, nose to nose, and he's still all over sand and she's still missing the majority of the clothes she still has.

“There's room for two,” she says quietly, not sure if it's an invitation or a benediction to what she hopes will happen. And this time _he_ kisses _her_ , and Selena doesn't protest at all, not even when the rocks at the side of the pool are pressing into her back and probably breaking skin, because this is what she wants and _he_ is it.

xXx

Somehow it's not all that strange to him for them to fall into this (whatever it is) with Selena. Nothing has really changed (because that's just they way they are) even if everything has (because this is the way they want to be) and David is content with it. The time they spend together is good (and the sex is even better) and the time they spend apart isn't the most terrible thing he's ever suffered through. He just tries not to think about what will happen when rescue comes, because David doesn't really want to think about it.

If everything has changed between them now, everything will change again when that happens. Now if only David could stop thinking about it.

Except that he can't; it eats up a lot of his day (and more of his night than he wants to admit to) until he feels like a candle being burnt at both ends. But David doesn't talk to Selena, because she's happy, and because he doesn't want to know if this (whatever it is) is just something that happened because they're here, or if it's something that happened because they're them.

(Truthfully, he wants it to be because they're them, because he doesn't want to go back to being David and her being Selena, he rather— _really_ —likes being _DavidandSelena_ instead of DavidandSelena. The fact that there's a difference is startling enough that he can spend an entire morning adding to the HELP sign instead of brooding over whether Selena is sleeping with him because he's convenient or because she really, truly wants to.

When she curls into him that night he holds her even tighter because he's afraid—that they'll never be rescued, and that they will be.

They make love, they work, they play. David gets another sunburn with freakish ease; Selena teases him mercilessly. He teaches her to gut a fish (and manfully steps up to the plate when she can't finish it without running off to lose her lunch) and doesn't mock her for it. The self-depreciating grin she gives him isn't even what keeps him from doing it, he doesn't because that's just him, because he is David Henrie and she is Selena Gomez.

The twenty-third morning that they're there David wakes up to the knowledge that he's not a little bit in love with Selena. He's completely in love with her, and he can't see his life without her in it always.

He hates himself for considering it a stroke of luck that this is the very same day that she has a meltdown over whether or not they're ever going to be rescued. (Unfortunately the knowledge bitch-slaps him even harder when he doesn't convince her that sex will help and she doesn't think it's odd that he's willing to just hold her until the crying jag has passed.)

He wakes up the twenty-fourth morning to Selena staring at him. This scares him more than the thought of rescue or a lack of it, because he can't help but wonder if Selena is beginning to regret what has happened between them (whatever it is, because it's definitely more than sex) or if she thinks he does or if she thinks it's _just_ sex, because it's not (and the thought of it being just sex makes him feel kind of sick to his stomach) no matter what she might think.

David wakes the twenty-fifth morning to the dull roar of the ocean and the sharper roar of an engine. Selena doesn't stir beside him even when he can hear people calling their names. He knows that no one can see them, that the only think properly visible (especially in the dull dawn light) is the now knee high debris begging for help. And as much as he's grateful to be rescued (or at least he will be when their rescuers find them) David can't help but resent it, because this is going to change everything.

Again.

xXx

She should be grateful that she wasn't naked and in the middle of having her way with David. Selena knows this, instinctively and logically. But she isn't. She isn't grateful at all. They were rescued, one of her prayers is now answered (the other is still in progress because while she's not grateful, she isn't sure how David feels) and she resents the hell out of it.

They've been separated, but Selena supposes that it's for the best (because, honestly, she's not really all that thrilled with the idea of sitting through her own physical _and_ his) especially after she's kicked her agent out and is alone with the (supposedly) impartial doctor who knows how to (again, supposedly) keep her mouth shut. But it had to be asked, because David sure as hell didn't carry condoms habitually in the hopes that he'd get to sleep with his costar (at least she hoped he didn't, because they certainly didn't use any) and she's late.

Which is laughable, considering everything that's happened, but Selena has learned something valuable in the last month: life is stranger than fiction. And besides, the Imp of the Perverse obviously has it out for her, so why not do this to her on top of everything that has already happened?

“It's not unusual for your body to sustain a cycle—or even more than one—given the stress you were under and the lack of proper food,” the woman is telling her.

Selena is biting her tongue not to yell at the woman, because she'd think it's pretty obvious that she wouldn't mention being late if it weren't important. She's nineteen, not twelve, and she knows all about stress and her cycle. (Her mind twitches at that—stress, it's a killer, it says, and Selena bites back the urge to laugh and simultaneously dissolve into tears.)

AND, she even thinks it in capitals, they had way better food than they might have. (It must be a sign of stress that she's so offended at the assumption that she and David were malnourished and starving.)

“Except that I was having sex,” Selena finally says, impatient and frustrated and probably a bit louder than she needs to.

But it has the desired result and she gets to pee on a stick and then have blood drawn and even if the stick is ambiguous Selena isn't sure what she wants the blood test to say (because what they had on that island, yes, whatever it was that—god—was definitely not just sex, might be all they had and she can't stand the thought that all she walks away with is memories and sand in strange places for the next month) in the end. And in the end it's not the blood test that says anything, it's the doctor's face which, Selena assumes, is supposed to be a reflection of her non-pregnant state of being.

Selena doesn't find it at all odd that she's not sure she's grateful.

And then everything goes to hell in a hand-basket (which is just really fucking sad considering she's already been to hell on a jet ski) and there's a press conference. Everyone's there from reporters to rabid fans, her mother (who knows nothing), David's family (who definitely know nothing), Demi (who knows everything) and the rest of the Waverly cast. It gives her a headache after all of the peace they had on the island, but at least now she has Tylenol and Advil and even some very interesting narcotics prescribed to her (because she's so obviously a delicate wilting flower after her 'ordeal' with David) that she can take—just after the damn press conference.

Damn the press conference. And Disney too, while she's thinking about it.

And maybe even David, too, because he hasn't looked at her more than once since it began and she's sick with the realization that fuck, he really was only in it for the sex and companionship. Before it can leak into her face Selena bites it back because hey, she's Selena Gomez, and she's still a damn fine actress.

And if David's gone this far without realizing that she's in love with him, then obviously she's doing something right.

But the questions make her sick, the headache eats at her composure, and Selena is sure that this is hell or penance because there's so many people and she really can't handle this. But she does, she fields questions with the same ease that she sees David force through, she answers them, laughs, makes witty comments and tries to pretend that she's actually slept in the forty-eight hours since they were 'rescued' instead of lying awake all night wishing they weren't.

But everyone has a breaking point, and Selena is about to hit hers just as it's ending. She thinks she's safe for a moment but she knows better (after all, this is Disney and they're stars now) and the last question that comes as they're walking through the door isn't anything just much, just another simple question on top of a million others. It's just that they ask _her_ and Selena just can't handle it.

She doesn't understand how no one can see her falling apart, because the press obviously doesn't care, and her mom and Demi are too far back (because the security she and David apparently need now separate them from just about everyone) and her agent is going on about optioning her 'tragic time lost at sea' as a movie, and Selena just needs to scream. And then she feels David's hand on the small of her back, and Selena thinks that she might be able to handle anything, because right now, he's actually looking at her.

And she's pretty sure it's because he wants to.

xXx

It's their third night back and David is wide awake in the too big bed of his hotel room. They're still on Nassau but mostly because it'll be a nightmare for both him and Selena if Disney shipped them back to the mainland right now. Everyone is so caught up in it, the story, the apparent romance (even if he and Selena said nothing how could the gossip mongers not notice how close they stood, how they constantly touched, how they looked and how they stared?) and the completely insane fucking drama.

He can't sleep, he's not sure he's really slept since the rescue, except for the time on the boat when Selena huddled against him under the blanket in the shade, warm and soft with his arms holding her tightly. He doesn't think she's been sleeping either, because every morning her eyes are dull and the circles match his own. He wishes he could explain it, when people ask them if they're okay. But how do you explain it?

He's twenty-two years old, he never asked to have to take care of someone else, or have someone else take care of him. He's never been in love before, either, so this particular happenstance is completely mind-boggling. But David's learning to accept it, what else is there to do when he's laying there awake all night?

But it's the third night, and he wants to sleep. He wonders how bad it will look if he steps out into the corridor, smiles at the two security guards on his door and hers, and slips into her room for the rest of the night.

And then he remembers that it's Disney, and he should probably talk to a fucking shrink because there are thousands (millions) of preteen fans who could be scarred for life if he did something like that. (Never mind that there's even more who are older who thinks it's just so fucking romantic.)

He's already up, reaching for his pants and shoes when the knob on his door jiggles and the electronic beep tells him that a key card has been successfully swiped. The door opens and he doesn't have sense enough to be alarmed that someone else is breaking into his room, he just stands there and stares curiously, like he has no sense of self preservation (which he doesn't—didn't he stupidly get stuck on a desert island for five weeks because he was careless?) and waits.

That's it, just waits.

But he's glad he did, even if he looks like a total ass, one foot half wiggled into a shoe, his arm paused in mid reach for the khaki's thrown on the chair next to the bed. The light pours in from the hall; he ignores the knowing smile from the guard on his door in favor of Selena. Beautiful, wonderful, practical Selena, who's standing in his door, eyes dark and wide, her lip caught between her teeth.

“I couldn't sleep.”

“Neither could I.” He doesn't try and tell himself that he sounds smooth. If she wanted smooth she wouldn't be here in his room, she'd be in her own moving on. Which means she must still want him as badly as he wants her.

She closes the door behind her and takes a step towards him. He doesn't wait and opens his arm, pants forgotten as he toes the shoes out of the way. She comes into them, her own slim arms tight around his waist. It feels good. It feels like heaven. It feels like home.

Her voice is muffled against his chest, but he understands her plaintive words easily. “I can't sleep alone. I can't sleep without you.”

He presses a kiss to the top of her head, her dark hair smooth under his lips. “I know. I can't either.”

She speaks again, softer, and this time he can't hear her well enough to understand. He tells her so, and she looks back up at him. He thinks he could drown in her eyes and die happily doing so. “I don't want to.”

“Then stay,” is all he says.

And she does, curled against him, warm and wonderful. He holds her carefully, like she's breakable, but smiles when she shifts and moves to kiss him, revels in it when she accepts his own. It's the first time he's ever loved her properly; it's **expatiation**. He wants to stay like this forever, but he's afraid to tell her. Except that she does.

“I like this,” she says so bluntly that even in the darkness it's like the sudden glaring of light. “I like this with you.”

He smiles, pulls her a little closer. “Then lets see how it works out for the next twenty or thirty years.” When she suddenly kisses him he doesn't fear the sudden damp of tears on her face.

It's hours before they sleep with dawn beginning to break through the windows. David knows that there's going to be a furor when they can't find Selena in her room (because this is Selena Gomez, after all, and of course they're going to fetch her for press conferences before him, he's just David Henrie, and she's way more beautiful than he is). Disney's probably going to have a few things to say to them when they find her in his room.

Or, more accurately, naked and asleep (and having been thoroughly debauched) in his room.

But then he thinks, _Fuck Disney._ Because he's David Henrie. And if that's good enough for Selena, then he doesn't really care if he pisses Disney off. He's going to be with her for a lot longer than he was ever with Disney and, after all, he loves her, and she loves him, and that's all that really matters, right?

xXx

Selena makes it quite apparent that he's right and that's all that really matters when they finally do find her and their agents and the Disney representative act like they've done something wrong. She doesn't wait for him to tell them to fuck off, she tells them herself, and David loves her even more for that.

_FIN_


End file.
